The major purpose of the proposed research is to explore the efforts of a defendant's choice to withhold information during the course of his testimony upon jurors' perceptions of his innocence or guilt. Although information might be withheld from jurors in various ways, the primary focus of the proposed research is to discover the consequences one faces in a hearing or a court of law after having withheld information by invoking the Fifth Amendment in the course of his testimony. Of particular interest are jurors' perceptions of the intent of the defendant who withholds information and the evaluations and/or decisions made on the basis of this perceived intent. The research outlined in the proposal will employ a common methodology. Subjects will take the role of jurors sitting in judgment of a defendant in a criminal court case. The evidence in these cases will be highly equivocal so that judgment will likely be passed on the basis of the defendant's testimony. Withholding of information will be manipulated by varying the defendant's responses to the prosecutor's line of questioning. The specific variables mentioned in the proposal were selected to explore the generality of observed "withholding effects."